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Ireland: a post-mortem examination – by Roberto de Mattei

Posted by Joseph on 31 May, 2015

In his masterpiece “The Soul of the Apostolate”, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), Trappist Abbot of Sept-Fons, expressed this maxim: “A holy priest coincides with a fervent populace; a fervent priest – a pious populace; a pius priest – an honest populace; an honest priest – an impious populace” (Italian version, Rome 1967, p. 64). If it is true that there is always a degree less in the spiritual life between the clergy and the Catholic people, after the vote in Dublin on May 22, we should add: “An impious priest coincides with an apostate populace.”

Ireland in fact, is the first country where the legal recognition of homosexual unions has been introduced not from the top but from the bottom, through a popular referendum; yet Ireland is also one of the oldest Countries with a deep-rooted Catholic Tradition, where the influence of the clergy is still relatively strong in part of the population.

It is no novelty that the “yes” to “homosexual marriage” was supported by all the parties, the right, the left and the center; it is not surprising that all of the media sustained the LGTB campaign, nor that there has been massive financing from abroad on behalf of this campaign; the facts foreseen, were, that, of 60% of the population who voted, only 37% of the citizens expressed their “yes” and that the government had skillfully shuffled their cards introducing a law in January 2015, permitting adoption by homosexual couples, prior to the recognition of pseudo-homosexual-marriage. What provokes the greatest scandal are the silences, the omissions and the complicities by the Irish priests and bishops throughout the electoral campaign.

One example is enough for all the rest. Before the elections, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diamund Martin, declared that he would have voted against homosexual marriage but wouldn’t have told Catholics how to vote (LifeSiteNews.com, May 21). After the vote, he declared on Irish National Television that: “the evidence cannot be denied” and that the Church in Ireland “needs a reality-check” In merit of what happened Monsignor Martin added: “it isn’t only the outcome of a campaign for a “yes” and a “no” but it attests to a much deeper phenomenon” therefore “ we need to review the pastoral care of youth: the referendum was won with the votes of the young and 90% of the young who voted attended Catholic Schools.” (www.corriere.it/esteri/ May 24,2015)

This position reflects, in general (apart from a few exceptions) the Irish clergy who have adopted the line that Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, the Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference in Italy, had hoped for: to avoid polemics and clashes at all costs: “it is not about who makes the loudest outcries, the pasdaran [*Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards] of the two sides exclude themselves” (“Corriere della Sera”, May 24).

One Response to “Ireland: a post-mortem examination – by Roberto de Mattei”

Alistair Maria Badenochsaid

False sales without faith, grandiose entitlements to cheat the honest, nobility for pseudo nobility, disengagement from truth, untruths to justify tables in the temple, casting stones before sentence, abandonment of honesty and true family, selling false piety for martyrdom, pseudonyms for authors, the names of the saints cheated of honesty, integrity for others but not in you, abandonment of person, sons sharing bedrooms of other men, reality check requiring conscience before this false piety, destruction of families’ in your name, destruction of families’ in your name, false beliefs of inherent dishonesty justifying belief. Your lie is a lie whether an honest lie or a dishonest lie, yet you audaciously blame others for unanswered prayers. Little wonder Ireland has failed.